


don't threaten me with a good time

by canistakahari



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Cabin Fic, Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sickfic, Stargazing, Vacation, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 16:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18102404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canistakahari/pseuds/canistakahari
Summary: Steve's taken him on vacation to a cabin in Canada in the middle of winter, so it's obviously the perfect time for his body to go haywire. Bucky is determined to stick it out, though, partly because he's a stubborn bastard, but mostly because he feels some kinda way about Steve.





	don't threaten me with a good time

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to my pal [newsbypostcard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/newsbypostcard) for talking this idea through with me when all I wanted to do was write comfort fic but didn't know where or how to do that. much love to [aplethora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aplethora/pseuds/aplethora) and [affectingly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/affectingly/pseuds/affectingly) for cheerleading when I threw context-less snippets at them. finally, huuuge thanks to my dear [starsandgraces](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandgraces/pseuds/starsandgraces) for betawork and kind words <3
> 
> you can see the inspiration for the cabin steve and bucky stay in right [here](https://www.canadastays.com/p493261). why are they in canada? because I wanted them to be. when is this fic set? i don't care [sunglasses emoji]

“Oh, god,” says Bucky. “It’s yellow.” 

“Yep,” Steve says. “Sure is, pal.”

“Is this why you wouldn’t let me see any pictures of it?” demands Bucky. 

There’s a significant pause. “Yeah.” Steve nods firmly. “Sure. That works.”

Set garish and loud against a muted landscape of snow-covered trees, the house sears into Bucky's skull like the afterimage of staring directly into the sun. It’s practically steaming, melting the snow piled around it through sheer force of will. This house is _alive_. This house is going to consume them. 

“Sure stands out, huh,” Steve says cheerfully. “You could never lose it. That’s not a house that ever goes missing.”

“You can probably see this house from space,” agrees Bucky. 

“I think it has—”

“If you say the word ‘character’ to me right now, Steve, this house will be the last thing you ever see,” Bucky says grimly. 

“—charm,” finishes Steve. He gestures vaguely, his coat crinkling in the crisp air. “Listen, it’s just the exterior. We’re not going to be sitting out here staring at a bad paint job for two weeks, okay? It’s not yellow _inside_.”

Bucky, who is very cold despite being layered into a puffy down coat, fleece jacket, hoodie, two scarves, and a thick wool hat with a pompom on the top, _definitely_ won’t be sitting out here staring at anything if he can help it. He huffs and stomps to the front door. 

“I think it’s great,” he hears Steve muttering behind him. “Who doesn’t like yellow? It’s happy. Like a nice sunny day.”

The inside of the house is, thankfully, not yellow. The walls are light wood, angling up into a slanted ceiling, creating a light, airy spaciousness in a fairly small space. The chosen colour scheme is predominantly grey-blue and white, with the occasional dull mustard accent piece. Nothing inside the cabin immediately assaults his senses with eye-watering brightness. 

It’s cute. A bit kitschy, maybe. 

“See?” says Steve, setting his suitcase on the floor. “It’s _nice_.”

“It’s—floral,” allows Bucky. There are small paintings on the walls of various blooms, possibly hand done by someone’s grandmother, and the large overstuffed couch belongs in a completely different decade. One of the ones Bucky doesn’t particularly remember very well, but when he _does_ think of it, his mind presents him with big dramatic flowers, orange and yellow and brown.

“What do you think?” asks Steve. 

“It's a reasonable facsimile of a house,” Bucky says flatly. 

He can't help wanting nothing more than to burst Steve's bubble with the biggest, sharpest stick he can find. Hell, he wants to blow it up with a rocket launcher. They've been up since four in the morning. Going through security at the airport was a clusterfuck and a half because it always is when you have a metal arm and a reinforced spine and you're traveling with Captain fucking America even with all the necessary paperwork, and it took six! hours! of travel! from door to door to get to this banana shack. 

As far as Bucky's concerned, they could have stayed in New York and still frozen their asses off with none of Steve's passable attempts at speaking French. 

(“Arrêt!” Steve said cheerfully, for the fifth time, as he rolled the rental car to a stop at an intersection. 

“Yep,” said Bucky. “The signs continue to be bilingual in Quebec, the bilingual province of Canada, the country with two official languages.”

“The French even comes first.”

“ _Stop_.”

“No, _arrêt_.”)

From Bucky’s cursory glance around the one room cabin, the best part of the place by far is that there's a fireplace at the foot of the bed. 

It's as close as Bucky can get to the flames short of sleeping _on_ the hearth. Or in the fire. 

The worst part, besides the exterior paint job, is the motivational decor. 

“Hey Buck,” says Steve. Bucky turns around to find Steve holding a blue pillow with the words BE FREE embroidered across it. “You need a little pick me up?”

Bucky catches the pillow out of the air when Steve lobs it at him. “Great. I’ll use this as kindling.”

“You can’t destroy the accoutrement,” says Steve.

“What if we buy normal pillows and just replace 'em?”

“Just flip them over so you don’t have to look at them.”

“I'll still know the house is trying to talk to me.”

“Not _you_ specifically.”

“We're the only ones here,” protests Bucky, scowling at the pillow in his hands and squashing it down. “What other intended audience is there? This pillow wants me to be free, but it doesn't know me. It's insulting.”

Steve looks like he's equally torn between laughter and indulgent sympathy. 

He settles on laughter, and gets hit in the face with freedom for his trouble.

oOo

It takes nearly an hour just to unpack the car. Besides their bags, Steve made them stop in the nearest town to stock up on groceries, and he’s whistling now as he puts them away in the small but well-equipped kitchen.

Once Bucky has dumped his suitcase on the floor and peeled off layer after layer of his winter insulation, he beelines straight for the fireplace and finds that it's a traditional wood fire, not gas like most of the contemporary houses he's seen. 

There's a small stack of wood beside it. Bucky has no idea if there's more outside, but if there isn't, he hopes Steve is prepared to chop more. 

Grabbing a bit of kindling and the barbecue lighter provided, Bucky crouches on the hearth like a gargoyle, patiently stoking the flames until there's a proper fire crackling at the logs.

He sits in front of it, eyes closed, until the heat sinks into his bones and his nose and cheeks feel tight and raw. 

“Buck.” Steve announces his presence before he touches Bucky, settling a heavy hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “You trying to find out how fast your eyebrows will grow back if you singe them off?”

“No,” says Bucky, opening his eyes and narrowing them against the bright flare of licking flames. “It takes about twelve hours.”

“Wait,” says Steve, blinking. “What?”

“Nothing,” says Bucky. He's basking like a lizard under a heat lamp.

Steve can’t let it go. “Hair growth isn’t affected by the serum,” he says stubbornly.

“Huh,” says Bucky, frowning thoughtfully “You sure it's not just your natural inability to grow a beard? Serum can't influence what's not already there.”

“And are you sure god didn't just give you a real hairy ass?” Steve retorts. “Because that's where your genes are most successful.”

“Please,” scoffs Bucky. “My full head of luscious hair says otherwise.”

“Anyway,” says Steve. “I can grow a beard.”

“Sure,” says Bucky. “And I can punch the ground with my metal fist and stop the rotation of the earth.”

“What do you want for dinner?” Steve asks, changing the subject completely. “I got some frozen pie shells, we got eggs and cheese, how about a quiche?”

“You’re going to make it?”

“Yeah, Buck.”

“Onion?”

“Sure.”

As Steve shuffles over to the kitchen area, Bucky grins and murmurs, “Quickest way to get Steven Grant Rogers to do something is tell 'im he can't.”

“I _heard_ that.”

oOo

Bucky knows something is wrong with him before he even opens his eyes the next morning.

It’s been a long process, getting to know his body and its needs again, when previously the demands of his physiology were not a priority nor was he allowed the freedom to express discomfort or desire. 

Hunger and pain were afterthoughts, while his superpowered metabolism took care of pretty much everything else. He healed quickly and didn't get sick. For a long time after, Bucky set alarms for everything—meals, bathroom breaks, going to sleep, getting up, walking, sitting. Structure, timing, necessity. 

There was a lot of Steve asking something like, “are you cold?” and Bucky looking up and saying, “what?” only for Steve to point out he was shivering and then drape a blanket over his shoulders, while Bucky just said “oh,” like an idiot. Yeah, he was cold, he just hadn’t registered it as important.

It's easier, now, to tell something isn't right, but that doesn't mean Bucky can actually figure out what that something is or why he's uncomfortable. Discomfited? Whatever. 

Checking items off the list is easy enough, because Bucky is aware of basic needs, even if sometimes his own basic needs all blur together into a secondary state of being that doesn’t often get acknowledged until Steve acknowledges it for him. 

He is not:

  * Hungry
  * Hurt 
  * Cold
  * Horny
  * Tired



He is:

  * Achy
  * Hot
  * Nauseated? 



There's a miasma of ick surrounding him, a generalized discomfort manifesting into a sticky sort of heat in his throat. It hurts when he swallows. There’s a creak to his joints like someone forgot to oil him and a cloudy thickness that’s expanding in his skull. 

At first, he elects to ignore it. 

It’s vacation. When he peels his hot eyelids open and finds it’s still dark there’s no point even addressing the concept of being awake yet. He doesn’t _need_ to commit to reality, so he rolls over with a groan and drags himself back down into sleep.

Steve has other ideas, because Steve is the kind of person that goes on vacation with an itinerary, and the next time Bucky wakes up, Steve is moving around the cabin making a lot of truly unnecessary noise. 

“Arrêt,” Bucky rasps, his voice muffled by one of the decorative pillows. He opens his eyes and finds the word WILD squashed against his balled up metal fist next to his cheek. It’s not a sight he appreciates, so he closes them again.

Steve stops rattling around, the weight of his steps tracking to the bed. “You’re awake! Perfect timing. Want to go snowshoeing with me?”

Bucky feels something move in his sinuses, a shift of pressure that frees up one nostril, which he hadn’t actually noticed was blocked until it cleared. “What,” he says slowly, “is the temperature outside?”

There’s a brief shuffling. “Uh,” says Steve. “It’s a bracing thirty below.”

Bucky makes an involuntary noise. “That was the sound of my balls retreating back into my body, Steve.”

“Come on,” says Steve, and Bucky bounces a little on the mattress as Steve sits heavily on the edge, rattling his brain in his skull like a prize from a gumball machine. “It’s not that bad. We got all sorts of gear. You’re not going to stay inside for two weeks, are you?”

“I can try,” Bucky says grimly, peeling his face up from his pillow and blinking at Steve. His eyelids feel gummy. Are they swollen? Is he having an allergic reaction to Canada? 

Steve’s big fair face frowns down at him from beneath the halo of his hair. “You okay?”

“I was asleep,” complains Bucky, because he doesn’t want to explain that his throat feels like a clogged drain and he hasn’t yet been able to catalog these symptoms into anything that makes sense to him. 

“You sound...thick.” Steve’s mouth snags in a genuine pout. 

“Again,” repeats Bucky. “I was asleep until you started banging around in here like a human-sized pinball. Sorry my voice is grating on your delicate nerves.”

Steve, incongruously, smiles at him, big and wide and delighted, like Bucky’s cranky morning diatribe is exactly what he needs. “You sure you don’t want to go out?”

Bucky reaches for his phone, dragging it onto the bed. 

It’s just past eight. It’s so fucking _early_. 

Steve’s probably already been up for three hours, because he’s on the sleep schedule of an adolescent golden retriever, waking up to the gurgle of his own stomach just before dawn every single day. 

“I’m sure,” Bucky says meaningfully, collapsing back into bed. 

“Okay,” says Steve. He pats Bucky’s hip and then stands up. “I’m going to go for a walk. Maybe we can save the snowshoeing for when it’s not so cold.”

“You got it,” says Bucky. Steve does not got it. Bucky is probably lying. “I’ll languish here for now.”

“There is french toast in the oven,” says Steve, bending over him to kiss his forehead. “Bacon, too. Coffee pot should have two good cups in it.”

“Thank you,” mumbles Bucky, his cheeks heating up. He blinks up at the slanted ceiling, listening to Steve move around getting dressed. Steve cooked breakfast? He didn’t smell it? Bucky breathes in experimentally through his nose, finding his sense of smell has diminished considerably and is probably not as effective as it usually is on account of his sinuses being blocked. 

“I’ll be back in hour or so,” Steve says eventually. 

Bucky rolls over to look at him. “Okay. Don’t get eaten by a bear.”

“Thanks for your concern,” says Steve. “But I think they’re hibernating.” His coat and snow pants rustle when he moves. He pulls his scarf up over his nose, waves, and lets himself out of the front door.

oOo

Bucky’s body isn’t too thrilled about the bacon, but the french toast doesn’t aggravate the sea monster flopping around in his gut. He doesn’t attempt coffee, even though he wants it.

He still can’t smell any of it. 

Getting up and retrieving food overheats him entirely, and as someone that is almost always uniformly cold unless he’s standing under a scalding shower spray or sitting two inches from a roaring fire, Bucky finds himself stripping off layers as he miserably crawls back into bed. He pulls the covers up, then pushes them off. He relocates to the couch for a change of scenery. For a little while, he lies on the floor, which is cold, next to the fireplace, which is hot. 

When Steve gets back, Bucky is back on the couch, clutching a cup of tea.

The door bangs open, letting in a rush of cold air, and Bucky jumps, yelping, “Close the fucking door!” 

“Sorry, sorry,” says Steve, voice muffled by his scarf. 

The door slams shut behind him and Steve clomps his big boots, shaking loose a thin dusting of snow from his coat. He looks up at Bucky, pushing his scarf down, and in the brief second before the heat of the room melts it, Bucky spots ice coating Steve’s absurdly long eyelashes. 

“What the fuck,” he says loudly. “What the _fuck_ , Steve?”

“It sure is a cold one out there,” Steve says cheerfully, shedding his coat and mittens right onto the floor. His scarf and hat follow, revealing windburned cheeks. 

“Do you have frostbite?” demands Bucky.

Steve opens his arms and starts to advance.

“You’re getting snow everywhere!” cries Bucky, hurriedly putting his mug down and scrambling sideways along the couch. “Steve, if you touch me—”

“I’m so cold,” says Steve, flopping next to him on the couch with a huge gust of cold air that emanates _from his body_. 

“Don’t touch me!” yells Bucky. “No! No yetis allowed in the house!”

“So cold,” moans Steve, his big beefy arms coming up around Bucky, who’s trapped himself in the blanket tangled around his legs. Steve’s frigid cheek, which is splotched _white_ with what is very clearly the early stages of frostbite, presses to Bucky’s face, and Bucky’s entire body jolts at the icy burn. “Gimme a kiss!”

“No! You did this to yourself!” Bucky leans backwards, tipping off the side of the couch, and the entire room tips with him. Panicked, he reaches out and grabs Steve by the hair. Steve grunts in pain, but he’s _still_ trying to hug Bucky with his entire popsicle body, so Bucky kicks up, wraps his legs around Steve’s head, and lets their combined weight drag them both down. 

Pinning Steve to the floor with his thighs, Bucky grabs the BE FREE pillow and presses it over Steve’s laughing face. 

“You're so warm,” moans Steve, muffled by the pillow. His hands skim up Bucky's sides under his shirt, solid blocks of ice against his skin that rip a shriek out of Bucky so loud the windows rattle. 

Bucky immediately throws himself into a backwards roll, landing in a swift crouch two feet away, pulse pounding behind his eyes. “ _No yetis in the house_ ,” he hisses.

Steve sits up, now pink-cheeked as his circulation gets with the program, his hair a static mess. His sharp gaze darts over Bucky and whatever he sees makes his brows settle into a frown. “You don’t look so hot, Buck.”

“Maybe it’s because you just crushed me into your body, which now doubles as a freezer,” Bucky sputters, stalling. 

The nausea has deepened. Hurling himself ass over tea kettle has, shockingly, upset his full stomach, and his mouth is producing saliva at a truly alarming rate. 

“Yeah?” says Steve uncertainly. He pulls himself up onto his knees very slowly, like he’s trying not to spook Bucky. Stupid. He’s not a horse. “Looking a little green.”

“Froze your brain, too,” says Bucky, and then he throws his breakfast up right onto the floor, narrowly missing the crocheted rug.

oOo

“I don't know,” says Steve. “He threw up. Uh huh. No. Not sure, he won't let me touch him yet.” A pause, the sound of Steve pacing. “He locked himself in the bathroom.”

“I can hear you!” Bucky bellows from where he's hunched over the toilet and panting for breath. 

“Hang on,” Steve says. “He's yelling something.”

“I'm yelling something,” Bucky mumbles into the toilet seat. “Yelling. Me.”

“Buck?” Steve knocks delicately on the door like he can’t just punch straight through the wood and force his way inside. If this was their own home, he probably would, but it’s a rental and Steve has an inconsistent respect for private property. “Bucky, Natasha says that Tony could send a jet. We could be home before lunch.”

“No,” says Bucky. “I’m not going anywhere.” He slumps all the way down onto the floor, pressing his face against the cold tiles. “My body is just working something out. I’m fine.” 

“I _know_ that we can’t get sick,” Steve says, presumably to Natasha and not to him. “That’s why I’m calling. He doesn’t want to leave.”

“You can’t make me,” says Bucky, hiccuping wetly. “It took too long to get here. If we’re just suddenly back in Brooklyn by lunch, I’ll never recover.”

“Can I test his blood from here?” Steve sounds very serious, which is ridiculous. 

“That’s ridiculous,” hollers Bucky. “Ask Natasha if she ever got airlifted home for puking! I hope she’s laughing!”

“Nothing,” says Steve. “He’s not saying anything. No, I didn’t bring it. That’s what I thought.”

“Please,” begs Bucky. “I remember this. I remember you, throwing up on my shoes. Probably more than once, right? Everyone throws up.”

“I’ll call you back,” says Steve. 

“No,” says Bucky.

“Natasha, not you.” Steve’s voice is much closer to Bucky, as though he’s gotten down onto the floor and pressed his big stupid face to the door. Bucky blinks against a prickle of tears. “Will you let me in?”

“Depends. Are you going to drag me onto a jet?”

There’s a long, meaningful pause. “...No.”

“I’m not going nowhere,” Bucky says stubbornly. His metal hand is cold, so he presses it over his face. 

“That means you’re going somewhere.”

“Yeah, into the living room to kick your ass,” mumbles Bucky. “It’s an upset stomach and I’ve had worse. I’m staying.”

“Buck—”

“Listen,” interrupts Bucky, raising his voice. “If I pass out, or start bleeding from all my orifices, then you can call the coast guard or Stark or whoever can send a helicopter or a jet, I don’t care. Until that happens, you’re stuck with me here in this cabin, surrounded on all sides by your beloved snow.”

Bucky can practically hear the gears grinding in Steve's head through the resulting silence. “The minute you take a turn…”

“You can come in,” says Bucky. “The door isn't actually locked, you just didn't try it.”

“Son of a—” The door bursts open, admitting a very flustered Steve. Forehead all wrinkly with worry, like a bulldog. He looks at Bucky sprawled on the floor and slowly lowers himself down to his knees, crawling over to him. “Tony said—”

“Oh,” groans Bucky. “Was it a ruse? Is the cavalry on its way?”

“Calm down,” huffs Steve, opening the bathroom cabinet and rooting around inside. He pulls out a box of tissues and sets it on the floor next to Bucky. “No. Tony said considering your metabolism and how the serum works, you probably shouldn't be around other people anyway, because what's manifesting as a cold in you is probably worse for a normal person.”

“I've got a knock off serum,” sniffles Bucky. “Can't be that bad.”

“That's his theory, without a sample to test.”

“He,” says Bucky, “isn't even a doctor.”

Steve waves a hand. “He has Bruce.” 

“So I'm diseased,” Bucky says mournfully. “I'm dying.”

“Buck—” Steve's entire body tenses, his phone suddenly in his hand again, like he's two seconds away from throwing Bucky over his shoulder and running back to New York. 

“Please assume I'm being hyperbolic,” says Bucky, grabbing Steve's wrist. 

“You’re sure you wanna stay?” asks Steve. “I know you're not exactly thrilled—”

“Steve, of course I wanna stay,” Bucky says irritably. He slaps ineffectually at Steve's grasping hands. “It’s normal. You remember being sick, right?”

“I do,” says Steve. “I think maybe you don't.”

“It was mostly you,” mutters Bucky. He coughs into the floor tiles with feeling. 

“Seem to recall you being sick a handful of times,” counters Steve. 

“At least one of us does.” Steve doesn’t love when Bucky jokes about the holes burned into his memory, but Bucky’s been hugging the toilet for fifteen minutes, so he thinks maybe his ragged patience will be forgiven. 

“Seem to recall you also being a miserable grump when you were under the weather.” 

“No, that was you, too.”

“Uh huh,” says Steve. “Sure, Buck.” Why does he sound so _fond_?

“I need a shower,” says Bucky. “I'm going to drag myself into the tub, so if you could just turn on the water and let it rain down on me, I'll lie there until I drown.”

“Hyperbole,” says Steve, nodding. 

“Yeah,” says Bucky. “Good job.” He reaches out and grabs the edge of the tub, dragging himself across the floor. 

“Okay,” says Steve firmly. “Alright, pal, come on now.” 

“Nooooo,” croons Bucky, as Steve’s big hands wrap around his upper arms and heave him up to his feet. His face is suddenly alarmingly close to Bucky’s cheek like he’s about to kiss him, so Bucky puts his hands on Steve’s big chest, locking his elbows to hold him at arm’s length. “No, god, don’t touch me, I’m disgusting.”

“If I get you undressed and showered, will that help?” asks Steve, hands still curled gently around Bucky. 

“Just hose me down,” groans Bucky. 

“You got it,” says Steve. 

Steve, the traitor, emphatically does not hose Bucky down. He does help him out of his clothes and manhandles him gently into the bathtub, lathering him up and rinsing him down. Bucky is too busy staying conscious to really help, but Steve doesn’t seem to mind. 

Bucky really only registers that it feels nice when Steve starts to wash his hair, rubbing his scalp and massaging out the headache that's been throbbing at the top of his skull. 

“I like when you let me do this,” Steve says quietly. 

Bucky just keeps his eyes closed and deliberately forces his shoulders down below his ears. He can’t tell if the muffled quality to his hearing is a direct result of whatever is happening to his body right now or the soapy foam in his ears as Steve mashes way too much shampoo into his hair. “What?”

Steve clears his throat. “Take care of you. It’s nice, sometimes.”

“Do I get to wash your hair right back?” Bucky says smartly. 

“It doesn’t need washing.”

“Doesn’t gotta be now,” mumbles Bucky. “You never use conditioner. It’s always right there, I get two kinds, and you never use it.”

There’s an amused pause. “I have a—”

“If you say ‘2-in-1’,” interrupts Bucky, “I’ll shave your entire face while you sleep. Eyebrows and all.”

Steve’s fingers leave his head and then a second later, the shower kicks on, Steve using the detachable shower head to rinse out the suds. “But I’ve got this beard cooking, now. I’m working real hard on it.”

Bucky snorts. 

“You’re stubborn, is all,” Steve continues. 

There are a million things Bucky wants to say, all at once. He chokes on three different thoughts, settles on a bark of laughter, and abruptly shoves his knees up against the end of the tub and slides his entire body under the water. 

When he resurfaces a moment later, Bucky smooths back his sopping wet hair and scrubs at his face before he opens his eyes. Then he takes in Steve’s pursed lips and laughs again outright.

Steve gives him a slightly hangdog look, leaning his elbows on the edge of the tub. “You done?”

“ _I’m_ stubborn!” 

“Now, listen. I just want to—”

“I know. I like it, too,” says Bucky firmly. “I let you, when I want it. I don’t always want to feel like you need to.”

“I don’t.”

“You realize this is funny, though. Hilarious. Completely ridiculous,” insists Bucky.

Steve’s expression turns decidedly mulish. “It’s not funny.”

“It is.”

“It’s not!”

“‘I can make it on my own’,” Bucky mimics. “You telling me you never resented my help when it was offered? When you didn’t want to feel like a burden?”

Steve’s jaw tenses and he looks away. “That’s different.”

“Don’t patronize me,” says Bucky. The bath feels good until it doesn’t, his body suddenly overheated, the cool air hitting his wet skin and spinning his fuzzy head into a million drunken directions. 

“You’re not a burden.”

“Neither were you,” says Bucky, wiping water from his face with both hands. The temperature is too variable for him to determine if he’s running a fever. “Didn’t stop you holding me at arm’s length, even though I know you loved me.”

“Never stopped,” Steve says sharply. 

“I know,” groans Bucky. “Not in question.”

Steve hesitates. “Are you holding _me_ at arm’s length?”

“No.” Irritation wedges into his chest, building in tandem with his growing physical discomfort. It’s an exacerbated response. Normally he’d be up to bicker with Steve for much longer than this. “Did I say that?”

“You implied it. Not sure why it’s so hard for you to just let me—” Steve stops talking, bites his lip and frowns. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” says Bucky. “ _Oh_. Wanting to help myself doesn’t mean I don’t want you at all. Rather it be on my own terms, these days. I was making a point.”

Steve lets out a breath, mouth twitching into a faint smile. “Okay, okay. I get it.”

“Uh huh.” Bucky reaches out to pull the plug. “Got no desire to make it on my own.”

“You don’t have to,” Steve says softly. 

Bucky grunts. “And you?”

“I trust you to have my back, Bucky. Always. I get knocked on my ass, I know you’d take care of me. You always did.”

Bucky wishes he had a tape recorder or a paper contract for Steve to sign. The next time he gets hurt, Bucky is reciting those words to him verbatim.

“With the understanding that I don’t _need_ your help, but I do want it,” Bucky says shakily, “Please feel free to now help me out of this tub on account of I can’t get up.”

“Hell, Bucky,” Steve exhales, scrambling up to grab a towel. He wraps it around Bucky’s shoulders and then takes most of his weight to extract him from the tub, sitting him on the edge of it as he snags another towel to rub down Bucky’s hair. 

“I’m fine,” says Bucky, teeth chattering. “Gonna sleep it off.”

oOo

“So, there's some bad weather moving in,” says Steve later, when Bucky has wrestled his uncooperative body into sweatpants and one of Steve’s big hoodies. He tips himself into bed on top of the covers and eventually Steve comes to bodily roll him over and tuck him in. It makes something warm build in his belly that is close to (but also nothing like) nausea.

Bucky grunts into the pillow. 

He was hoping that getting horizontal would improve the state of his equilibrium but he feels like he’s moving even more than he did when he was actually in motion. 

“We’re all stocked up, but I need to go out and chop more wood.” Steve’s weight dips the bed and Bucky swallows hard on a lurch in his gut. Steve’s hand smooths over his damp hair.

“I’ll be right here,” says Bucky. He’s frankly a little disappointed he can’t go outside to watch.

“You need a bucket?”

“...Maybe.”

Steve’s fingers thread through Bucky’s hair and then he presses the back of his hand to Bucky’s forehead. “Are you hot?”

“From the bath,” says Bucky dismissively, shaking his head. 

Steve frowns. Bending over him, he cups Bucky’s jaw in both hands, tilting his face up gently and pressing his lips to Bucky’s cheek. “Hmm,” he rumbles. He shifts his face, lips now pressing to Bucky’s forehead instead. It’s not quite a kiss; he’s still checking Bucky for fever. 

From the tumultuous mess of Bucky’s long term memory recall, he conjures an image of Sarah Rogers checking her son for fever exactly like this, so long ago.

It brings tears to Bucky’s eyes. 

“You’re definitely burning up,” Steve says, and this time he does kiss Bucky on the forehead. 

“That’s because I’m hot stuff,” mumbles Bucky. He curls his fingers loosely around Steve’s wrists and closes his eyes. “Said so yourself.”

Steve huffs a laugh and tucks him back in. Joints aching, Bucky sags into the pillows with a groan. “I’m just going to be here,” he wheezes, out of breath. “Enjoying my vacation.” 

“I’ll make you some tea when I come back in,” says Steve. “Try to get some sleep.”

He rises from the bed. While he bustles around dressing himself to venture outside, Bucky becomes one with the mattress, desperate to be unconscious for a while. 

“Back in a bit,” says Steve softly. “Call me if you need anything.”

Bucky makes an affirmative noise, then listens to Steve open and close the door. Hears snow crunch underfoot as he heads into the yard.

Stifling a yawn, Bucky rolls over.

oOo

The thing is, Bucky isn’t exactly a good sleeper.

Everything that could possibly be considered disruptive wakes him, which means that in Brooklyn, every siren, car horn, screech of brakes, yowling cat, barking dog, crying baby, or hollering drunk student slaps him back into wakefulness between the hours of midnight and, say, noon. 

He sleeps an average of four hours a night, naps restlessly throughout the day in short bursts of deep sleep, and then, occasionally, when the stars align to produce a genuinely quiet night, he drools comfortably onto Steve and gets a full seven or eight hours. 

Generally, Steve himself is not a cause of disturbance while they sleep, though he’s terrible at keeping it down when he gets up before Bucky, which is every single day of the week. He doesn’t really snore, barely moves, cuddles Bucky into submission when he’s twitchy and restless, and is as happy to aggressively spoon Bucky as he is to wear him like a backpack. Straddling the fine line between ‘sleeps like the dead’ and ‘awake at a moment’s notice’, Steve has a fine-tuned sixth sense that lets him sleep through the next door neighbour’s 3 AM karaoke party but also jerks him wide awake at the slightest hint of a threat. 

(Once, as Bucky lay awake during predawn, the hours stretching around him until he was reasonably sure he’d projected himself into an entirely new plane of existence occupied only by a broken car alarm and the rhythmic thud of a bed frame against the shared wall, Steve slept like a rock beside him. That is, until glass shattered in the kitchen, and Steve sprang to wakefulness, rolling off the bed to grab his shield. 

Bucky was right behind him, his under-the-pillow knife in hand.)

Now, as he drifts through a fevered sleep punctured by the sound of an axe splitting wood, Bucky rolls himself over and over into the blankets until he’s folded into a shivering burrito. 

He startles awake to Steve touching his forehead.

“Sorry,” Steve says quietly. “Cold hands.”

“Feels good,” says Bucky, blinking groggily.

“Yeah, you’re still hot, pal.”

“You know I am.” Bucky laughs roughly and pushes his face into Steve’s hand, chasing the sensation. 

Steve obligingly flattens his palm against Bucky's forehead, cradling his skull with delicate care. Bucky grunts irritably when Steve pulls away, body angling out of sight for a moment. There's a crinkle of plastic. 

“Drink this, wouldya?” Steve sits up and helpfully makes the mistake of tipping a bottle of water against Bucky’s lips. 

“I got two working hands,” Bucky gurgles, stubborn enough to let the water dribble out the sides of his mouth. “One of 'em's even bionic.”

“Jesus,” laughs Steve helplessly, righting the bottle and staring at Bucky with helpless exasperation. “Yeah? Where are they, then? You made a cocoon.”

“Well,” says Bucky, licking his lips. “If we can't see them, are they really there?”

Steve leans against the headboard, crushing the TODAY IS THE DAY pillow under one bulging bicep. Sometimes he moves his massive body like he's a controlled rock slide, muscles shifting as slowly as tectonic plates. “I could reach out and check.”

“You feeling frisky?” slurs Bucky, rubbing his cheek against the pillow. “You wanna feel me up, Rogers?”

“I always wanna get fresh with you, Barnes.” Steve’s mouth slides into a crooked grin. 

“Romance isn't dead,” Bucky warbles. He thinks he might be hungry. It's hard to separate appetite from nausea, sometimes. Either that, or he's just in love. “See? A century-old love affair, you and me.”

“Shit, Buck.” Steve blinks in startled surprise, a telltale sheen to his eyes. He sniffles, the tip of his nose a bit flushed. “Hey. You sure you're feeling okay?” He leans in, pink mouth twisted in sudden worry, dark lashes fanning out as he lowers his gaze. Bucky hopes he's gonna check for fever with his mouth again. There’s no way he could properly assess the state of Bucky with hands that cold. 

“Peachy keen,” Bucky says, when he remembers Steve asked him a question. “Besides the, you know, dreaded lurgy. The affliction. I’m plague-ridden, Steve.”

Steve chuckles, low, and cups Bucky's face in both of his big, gentle hands, evidently just so he can look at him. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” croaks Bucky. It's sticky when he blinks and he can hear the laboured drag of his own breathing. His body is a terrarium, a contained, humid breeding ground for a virus that has nowhere else to go. 

“Want some soup?”

“No.” Not hungry, then. Probably not nauseated, either. 

“Then what can I get you?”

“Some lovin’,” sighs Bucky. “My dick's in here somewhere.”

This time, Steve does reach out and feel him up, both hands groping at Bucky's self-imposed blanket prison. It's a true sign of Bucky's exhaustion that Steve's hands—Bucky's favourite hands in the world—conjure nary a stir in his nethers. 

“Oh,” says Bucky, disappointed. “Maybe later.”

“You just let me know,” says Steve. He's smiling soft, indulgent. The kind of smile that lodges tight in Bucky's chest, locked up in a brittle tenderness that Bucky crushes immediately with self deprecation. 

“Can’t believe you married this,” Bucky jokes, sucking in a deep, deliberate inhalation of air that vibrates his sinuses with a congested snort. 

“I can,” Steve says dopily. 

“Aw. Fuck. _Steve_ ,” whines Bucky. He's too loopy with fatigue and illness to smother the weight of the affection swallowing him whole. He's going to drown in it. He's going to hold his breath until his lungs scream for air and then when he can't stand it a second longer he will take a deep breath, flooded with love, and Bucky will drown in Steve. 

He won't struggle. 

“Got room in there for two?” asks Steve. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says miserably. “But only because you're warm and I've got the chills.”

“Sure,” says Steve, starting to unroll Bucky from the sheets. “Self preservation. I won't get any ideas about it.”

“See that you don't,” groans Bucky. He flops free of the blankets, shivering immediately. Steve moves fast, though, sliding in under the covers and wrapping his arms around Bucky, reeling him in. The bulk of him is solid and sturdy and so warm, Bucky nosing right into his chest to be held. 

“You feel hot to me,” Steve mutters, kissing the top of his head. 

Bucky, teeth chattering violently, burrows as closely as he can without climbing into Steve's clothes with him. “Well, I feel like an ice cube tossed into a wind tunnel.”

Steve's grunt resonates through Bucky's entire being. Shifting them both deeper into the well of blankets and pillows, Steve envelopes Bucky in a dense wall of heat. “Give it a minute,” he soothes. “I've got you.”

 _Fuck. Fuck me_ , Bucky thinks hysterically. _Fuck my battered soul and tired body. Fuck my piecemeal heart_. Steve Rogers just gratefully takes what is left of him without batting an eyelid, always has, always will. 

“Yeah,” whispers Bucky, his eyes stinging. “I know.” 

He tries to get his own arms around Steve, wants to hug him as hard as the weight of his loyalty and devotion demands of him in this maudlin moment. 

“Easy,” says Steve, his voice hitching on something caught in his throat. “I know, too.”

oOo

Bucky’s fever breaks.

He jerks awake in a cold sweat as late afternoon light floods the main window of the cabin. 

At some point over the last couple of hours, he's shoved off all the blankets and also Steve, now lying half naked and soaked to the skin across the majority of the mattress. Steve is stretched out at the very edge of the bed, one arm extended out towards Bucky as he sleeps. 

“Oh, come on,” croaks Bucky, his heart a little sore. He reaches up, slaps himself in the face a little, then pushes his damp hair off his forehead. “Steve. Sweetheart.”

“Hmm?” Steve comes awake all at once, alert and focused. He pushes himself up onto an elbow. “Bucky?”

“What are you doing?” Bucky demands. Sitting up with a dizzy sway of prickly lightheadedness, Bucky scrubs drool off his cheek. 

“You kicked me,” says Steve. “Mumbled that you were dying and put both feet on me and pushed me half off the bed.”

Bucky dreamed of fur coats and summer heat. Apparently he’d been struggling away from the furnace of Steve’s body. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly. 

“What’s wrong?” Steve sits up and scoots in closer. Bucky intercepts his wrist as he reaches for him. Steve frowns. “Your fever—”

“I want you to—” says Bucky, then stops himself before he can finish with _use your mouth_ , because he literally cannot say that to Steve right now. That combination of words can’t be what comes out of his mouth next. “Do what you did before.”

Steve looks confused for too long for Bucky to think he’ll understand without further explanation. He steels himself to give this ridiculous desire up and just submit, loosening his grip on Steve’s wrist, but then the wrinkles in Steve’s brow relax. “Oh,” says Steve. 

This time, when he reaches for Bucky, it’s to cradle his jaw in both hands as he presses his lips to Bucky’s forehead, long, lingering. The kiss shifts to his cheek, their faces pressed close, scratchy jaw tickling at Bucky’s face. “Fever broke,” Steve murmurs. “Had to check.”

“Yeah,” croaks Bucky. “Thanks.”

Steve’s smile is warm. He brushes Bucky’s hair back from his face. “Hungry?”

“Yeah,” says Bucky, surprised, because he is. “Starving.”

“That’s a good sign.”

“You can go ahead and tell Stark and Romanoff to stand down,” Bucky says. 

Steve makes a noncommittal noise and kisses Bucky again, slow. “I’ll make you something to eat.” He brushes the tip of his nose against Bucky’s cheek. “If you want to get cleaned up.”

Bucky grunts. “Nah, I was thinking slumming around with stale sweat and clammy skin was an underrated hygiene choice.” 

When Steve smiles again, the pillow creases on his cheek smooth out. “Sure. Eau de gym bag.”

Bucky drags his fingers through Steve's rumpled hair, giving the ends a slight tug. “You telling me I smell like a gym bag?”

“I can't tell,” Steve says blithely. “It's like when everyone eats garlic. The baseline changes.”

“I want eggs,” says Bucky. “Eggs and bacon and toast.”

“That can be arranged.” 

While Steve makes him breakfast, Bucky heads for the bathroom on shaky legs. He has to sit on the floor to fill the tub, winded, then he dozes off during his bath while listening to Steve clatter around in the kitchen whistling cheerfully to himself.

oOo

Recovery is still frustratingly slow.

It's not like this makes any sense at all, so there's no reasonable estimate to make on when Bucky won't feel like sleeping for eighteen hours a day while his sinuses industriously produce vast quantities of mucus. 

It also doesn't help that after his flat refusal to go outside with Steve on the first day, his immune system tanked and he’s now being punished for his rejection of nature with total house arrest. 

Bucky's going stir crazy. It's a small one room cabin, after all, and he can see every inch of it from his position on the bed. 

Steve goes in and out freely while Bucky languishes in his convalescence, free of nausea and fever but wrung out like a sponge, weak and exhausted. 

There are only so many movies he can sleep through. 

Waking up late at night to find Steve still up, hunched over the hearth poking at the smoldering fire, Bucky rolls himself over and admires the long, graceful lines of Steve's body. He's stripped down to his boxers, ass flexed appealingly tight. When he straightens, every muscle in his broad back shifts beneath smooth, unbroken skin. 

Bucky clears his throat. 

Steve turns around, the firelight casting bold shadows over him that change the landscape of his face. “I wake you? Sorry, pal.”

“No,” says Bucky, restless. “Sick of sleeping. Sick of this bed.”

Steve rests a knee on the bed and leans in, combing Bucky's hair with his fingers. “Your colour is better.”

“Hallelujah,” Bucky says flatly. “I'm cured.”

Steve's lips curl into a smile. “I think you're finally on the other side of it. Want some chamomile with honey? Help you sleep.”

“I've slept enough,” grumbles Bucky. “I need some fresh air before I crumble to dust.”

Steve's face is unmoved. “You want to go outside?”

“You've been doing it everyday. Almost gave yourself frostbite, like a fool.”

“I didn't have some unknown mystery disease,” Steve says mildly. “I didn't throw up on the floor or fall asleep in a full bath.”

“I can't stay in this motivational poster a second longer,” says Bucky. “Someone tore a page out of a cut-rate interior design magazine and then raided a Bed Bath & Beyond to faithfully replicate it in all three dimensions; I’m either gonna suffocate under the weight of these decorative pillows or I'll organize a mutiny with them. Gimme yard privileges, Cap.”

“Buck.” Steve almost smiles at his theatrics. “It's nearly midnight. It's freezing out.”

“Perfect. Then I won't want to stay out there long.” Bucky smiles wide, guileless. He knows it's an off-putting expression on this version of his face but he's not above playing dirty. 

Steve heaves out a shuddering sigh. “A short walk to the river and back to clear the fog outta your snot-filled skull. Okay? I'll get the gear. You're wearing everything I give you.”

“Can't actually get sick from a cold day.”

“Can put strain on tired lungs with frigid air.”

“Speaking from experience, Mr. Chronic Pneumonia?”

“Shut up and put these on,” huffs Steve, throwing a pair of purple snow pants at Bucky.

oOo

Outside, the air is crisp and clean and bitingly cold.

Bucky tugs his scarf up over his nose and goes down the front steps of the cabin, his boots crunching into the freshly fallen snow of the storm. He takes two steps into the yard and stops dead, stunned. 

In the daylight, when they'd arrived on the first day, the cabin and surrounding area hadn’t looked particularly noteworthy. Snow, trees, cloudy skies. Bucky was too distracted by the blindingly yellow house burned forever into his retinas to admire nature.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks softly. 

“Nothing,” says Bucky. They’re talking in low voices like they’re in a library and not the middle of fucking nowhere. He starts to walk, following a trail of footsteps he assumes belong to Steve. The blankets of surrounding snow remain unbroken and pristine, glittering like iridescent cellophane; he’s never paid attention to how snow isn’t actually white. 

Under the moonlight it’s illuminated, soft pinks and cool blues that light up the forest so brightly for midnight that Bucky can see the path to the river lit up clearly.

It's _so bright_. 

Bucky takes a deep breath, the cold air sinking into his lungs. 

There's no other sound. The world is quiet. 

Beside him, Steve catches up, his boots squeaking, echoing into the thick silence closing in around them. Then, Steve takes his hand in his. They're both wearing mittens, chunky and soft, but Bucky tucks their hands together as best he can and squeezes. 

“This way,” Steve says. 

It's not a long walk, and Bucky can see the lazy stretch of frozen river through the gaps in the forest where bare trees rattle between the uneven crowd of pines. 

As they emerge from the forest, the sky opens up. 

Bucky inhales so sharply his breath freezes in his lungs. 

The rich night sky touches every corner of the horizon, yawning infinite above them. Bucky can’t chance another breath, fearful of disturbing the aching silence. The sky is choked with them, more stars than Bucky has ever seen, dense clusters of light spilling across the heavens. 

“Oh,” breathes Steve, breath condensing in the cold air. “Wow. Never seen it like that before.” He gestures vaguely at the expanse. “The milky way.”

Bucky thinks maybe he has. Real or photograph, books, the internet, he’s—it’s familiar. The staggered stars, the deep awe, the tight squeeze on his heart that isn’t just the clear, cold winter air filling him up; it’s a beloved sight. When he looks up from wherever he is, the sky offers release and comfort. Different angles, maybe, from different places, but when he doesn’t know anything else, he knows the sky. 

It’s better like this, Steve shoulder to shoulder with Bucky, mittened hand clutched in his. This is the best view he’s ever had in his life. 

Standing together in this muted landscaped, muffled soft by thick blankets of snow, Bucky is full to bursting. He’s warm, overcome, eyes prickling with tears. 

“Okay,” Bucky says shakily, sniffling. “It’s not the worst honeymoon destination you could have chosen.”

Steve—who isn’t wearing a hat or scarf like he’s somehow gotten acclimatized to this frozen hellscape—grins at Bucky, his cheeks and the tip of his nose a ruddy pink. 

“Hey, what's it like to functionally regulate your body temperature?” asks Bucky. 

“Pretty swell,” says Steve, putting his arm around Bucky's shoulders and tucking him close. 

They venture out further onto the frozen river. Every so often, the heavy quiet of the night is broken by the groan of ice beneath their feet. It's an otherworldly sound—thunderous, echoing cracks, deep and resonant. 

The white stretch of ice and snow sprawls into the creeping dark of the opposite shore. Trees reach up, shadowed, just touching the blue-black horizon with their spindly branches and jagged points. 

“Cold?” asks Steve. 

“Not enough to turn around yet,” says Bucky, glancing at him sidelong. To Bucky’s extreme displeasure, Steve’s doing a more than passable job at growing a beard. It’s coming in darker than his hair, making him look annoyingly distinguished. 

Steve’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, and, oh, Bucky can’t stand to look straight at him sometimes for how much he loves him. 

It’s unbearable, this feeling burning deep at the very core of him. 

The place that they’re standing only exists in this state for a handful of weeks or months each year. It holds them up, now, in this moment, the ice solid beneath their feet, suspending them in time together. 

“Lie down with me,” Bucky says, impulsive. 

“Here?” But Steve is already pulling up his hood, then reaching out to do the same for Bucky. It’s smart. The snow won’t go down their collars. 

Bucky sits down in the thick snow and then flops flat on his back like he’s going to make a snow angel. A moment later, Steve sits down next to him, snow gusting up as he collapses onto his back. They hold hands like that, side by side. Wrapped up in the stillness of the night with Steve’s soft breathing, the warmth of his body, the steady beat of his heart. Cushioned comfortably by the snow. 

There’s nothing in his vision but the sky. A rich blue-black gradient, speckled with stars. 

When the lights start, Bucky stops breathing. 

He’s not sure what he was expecting, but it’s not this. The stars were enough food for his soul, bigger and brighter than he’s ever seen with a clear mind and heart; now the sky is erupting into green flames. 

“Is that—” Steve chokes out, equally stunned. 

“Uh,” says Bucky. 

“Wow.”

“ _Fuck_.” 

Bucky _definitely_ has no memory of ever witnessing the Northern Lights. They flow like ribbons, folding over each other as they dance across the sky, long, flickering streams that pull up higher and higher until they fade again. 

It reminds Bucky of being underwater, the quality of light as it ripples through the waves when you sink down deep, or, bewilderingly, the chaotic path of raindrops trickling down a windowpane. 

“Beats some old fireworks, huh,” Steve says in a hushed whisper. Like he’s afraid if he talks any louder, the lights will hear them and stop. Is there anyone else outside right now at midnight when it’s cold enough to freeze the tears on Bucky’s eyelashes to witness this with them?

Maybe there isn’t. Maybe the only people in the world with eyes on this are Steve and Bucky. It’s probably not true, but Bucky wants to be greedy about it. 

Bucky doesn't often know peace of mind. 

The moments he gets it are varied and rare: sitting on the fire escape before sunrise smoking a cigarette; the scant spaces left between their bare limbs tangled together in bed; kneading dough or stirring chocolate chips into batter; waking up on the couch with his head on Steve's lap and fingers in his hair. 

It's never when he's trying to achieve it, but when he's happy and settled enough to stumble into quiet intimacy and the sheer relief of a solitude that doesn't factor on loneliness.

Bucky tightens his grip on Steve's hand and gets a squeeze back. 

Above them, the sky is set ablaze by curtains of light. 

Steve doesn't say anything but Bucky can hear him breathing, soft and steady, and it grounds him in time and space again. This moment will break but Bucky thinks he can come back here if he needs to. 

“I didn't know I needed to see this,” Bucky admits. “But I think I've wanted to my whole life.”

“Think you could retire out here?” Steve’s tone is light, teasing. 

“In this river?” Bucky snipes back. “Naw. I need a bit more stability in my life. I'm not very buoyant. It’s the arm.”

Steve snorts. “You've got enough power to compensate. Could build a little hut on stilts, anyway. For all seasons. Go fishing every day.”

“And if I wanted to order pizza at two in the morning?” demands Bucky. “Or I ran out of that fizzy water I like? Or we needed milk on Sunday? Would you drive to the nearest 24 hour grocery store for me?”

“I would do an—”

“Don't,” cautions Bucky, and in a flash he's rolled himself swiftly onto Steve to straddle him, clamping his right hand over Steve's mouth. “Don't say it.” 

Steve's eyes are wide and clear blue in the brilliant brightness of this cold winter night. He does not move, perfectly still under Bucky's body. 

After a moment, Bucky lifts his hand. “I know you mean it,” he continues. “Won't begrudge you your need to provide, like we talked about. Don't require it, though.”

“I know you don’t,” Steve rasps, licking his lips. His cheeks are such an appealing pink. “Guess I'd miss my art classes.”

Bucky barks out a laugh, ducking his head, shoulders shaking. “What, I'm not a good enough model?”

He immediately regrets the words because Steve's eyes go horribly soft, mouth wobbly at the corners. Bucky heads it off before Steve can get a good, firm grip on Bucky's rabbiting heart. 

“Hey. Steve.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky breathes in deep. “You know, right?”

“I think I do.” Steve's expression is serious. “Remind me.”

Bucky peels off his mitten, placing his bare hand flat over Steve's chest, his wedding band glinting cold and silver in the moonlight. “I’m glad to be here, with you. In general, and in specific, right smack in the middle of this frozen river in Canada, shacked up in a twee little cabin.”

Steve covers Bucky's hand with both of his, enveloping him with warmth. “Got nowhere else I’d rather be but with you. Doesn’t matter where.”

“Did you know about all that, when you asked to come here?” Bucky points up at the sky with his free hand. Steve hasn’t let go of the other one yet. 

“Didn’t realize they got ‘em here,” admits Steve, shaking his head. “Woulda taken you to Alaska or Iceland, if we were after that.”

“So Quebec was just...on your mind.” Bucky raises an eyebrow, kneeling back to sit on Steve’s hips. “You had a real hankering for semi-authentic Canadian wilderness.”

Steve’s mouth twitches like he’s valiantly suppressing the urge to laugh. A sound bubbles up out of him, quickly smothered. “Uh huh. You said ‘I don’t care where we go,’ and I said ‘hot or cold?’ and you said ‘You pick’.”

“I sure did,” drawls Bucky. 

“You regret it?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “No. Pretty sure I woulda caught the walking death wherever we went. It turned out okay, didn’t it?”

“Still got a week left.”

“Looking forward to it.” Bucky leans in to kiss Steve, sharing warm breaths, cold noses brushing together. “I _will_ find out how you picked this place, though,” Bucky mutters against Steve’s lips.

“Can’t wait,” Steve whispers, smiling into Bucky’s kiss.

oOo

The next day dawns warm and sunny, the sky clear and blue and utterly cloudless.

Bucky’s up with the sun, his sleep schedule offset after so many daytime naps over the last few days, while Steve uncharacteristically grumbles and rolls away from him as Bucky leaves the bed.

When he opens the curtains, Bucky notices that the big fuck-off icicles hanging from the roof have started to melt. Once he realizes it’s above freezing, he cracks open the kitchen window to get some air flowing through the stuffy cabin.

Then, while Steve snores away in the rumpled mass of bedclothes, Bucky digs through the cupboards, gathering flour, milk, eggs, and butter. Steve even bought vanilla extract. There’s maple syrup as well, but it comes in a tin can, marked with the words “PURE Maple Syrup”, so Bucky rummages around the drawers until he comes up with a can opener. He has no idea how they’re going to store it after it’s opened without any jars or bottles, so for now he tips it all into a small saucepan and puts it on low heat. 

He makes pancakes. Stacks of them, dutifully storing them in the oven while he cooks the rest off. 

Steve finally stirs when Bucky starts the coffee machine, yawning and then sighing sleepily. When Bucky glances over his shoulder, he sees tousled blond hair under a mountain of blankets, the long bumpy slope of a nose, one bare shoulder. 

Turning back to the pan, Bucky flips a pancake. It doesn’t take long for him to hear Steve shuffle up behind him and Bucky doesn’t tense at all when Steve’s arms circle his waist. Steve’s broad chest presses up against Bucky’s bare back, chin tucking over his shoulder so his fresh growth of beard scratches at his skin. 

“Hey,” rumbles Steve, snuffling at Bucky’s jaw. “You cooking without a shirt on?” He slides his palm over the flat of Bucky’s belly, fingers just dipping into the waistband of Bucky’s boxer shorts. 

“I like to live on the edge,” says Bucky, tipping the pancake onto the plate. A little more butter into the pan, then the last of the batter. “You’re washing these dishes.”

“It’s only fair,” agrees Steve. 

Bucky flips the last pancake. “Okay. I give up. I gotta know. How’d you find this place? I’ll trade you a blowjob and as many pancakes as you can eat.”

There’s a long pause. “Sam sent me the listing as a joke,” Steve says slowly. 

“Wait. Let me get this straight,” Bucky says, tone measured. He turns off the burner and sets the pan aside. “You booked our honeymoon retreat as a joke.”

“No,” says Steve quickly. “I booked our honeymoon retreat because I wanted to see your face when you saw it for the first time. And believe me, Buck, you did not disappoint.”

Steve’s still got Bucky wrapped in his arms, so Bucky can’t dramatically spin around on his heel to face him and confront the sheer lunacy of booking a forest cabin in Quebec in the middle of winter just because he thought it would be _funny_. 

Bucky can’t help the snort that escapes him. “You wouldn’t let me see the listing.”

“Those decorative motivational pillows had to be experienced in person.”

“It’s yellow.”

“Yeah. It is. Are you mad?”

“No.” Bucky laughs freely. He shouldn’t be feeling _charmed_. This shouldn’t be endearing! But neither of them cares—they booked a trip because every single time they tried to explain they weren’t going to go on a honeymoon at all, they got shouted down by loud, offended friends. Bucky is pretty sure Tony and Pepper paid for this. “They all think we’re crazy for not going to Maui or Fiji or something? Should we be eating fresh caprese salad lying in a field in Tuscany?”

“Do you want to be?” Steve asks. He kisses Bucky’s shoulder, lips soft and a little chapped. “We could still do that. Go anywhere.”

“Nah,” says Bucky. “I want to eat all these pancakes with you.”

Steve’s stomach growls in response. “Me too.”

“Then let go of me and go sit down.”

For a second, Steve’s grip actually tightens. Then he releases Bucky, giving him space to turn around and step back into his arms. Steve’s eyebrows go up when Bucky grabs his face and kisses him hard. Those big hands settle back on Bucky’s hips, steady and strong.

“You can cash in on the blowjob when I can breathe through my nose again,” Bucky says firmly, patting Steve’s bearded cheek. 

Steve chuckles, thumb moving in small circles over Bucky’s hip. “You sure know how to spoil a fella, Buck.”

“I’m extremely generous with my skills,” says Bucky. He steps back, leaning into the counter. “Sit. Let me serve you breakfast.”

Steve backs away, palms up. “You really do feel better, huh?”

“Today is the day,” Bucky intones. 

“Be free,” Steve says, nodding solemnly. He pulls out a chair and sits down expectantly at the table.

They eat their weight in pancakes and pure maple syrup. Bucky isn’t quite up to snowshoeing yet like he promised, but there’s still time.

There’s plenty of time.

oOo

They come back next winter, and the winter after that. When the cabin eventually goes up for sale, Steve buys it.

They decide not to paint it. Bucky fills it to the brim with kitschy pillows.

Sometimes, if they’re lucky, they catch the Northern Lights.

\---


End file.
